Kimberly McCullough just opened up about her heartbreaking miscarriage

While New Year’s is a time to consider your goals for the upcoming year, it’s also a time for reflection — to look back on what you’ve gained and lost over the past year. General Hospital‘s Kimberly McCullough lost a lot in 2015, and in a brave blog post, she opened up about losing her baby daughter in a late-term miscarriage during her second trimester.

Describing the day she found out she was having a girl as “the best day of [her] life,” Kimberly wrote about the pure glee she felt when she got a call from her doctor’s office. “The nurse came on the phone and to my surprise, told me I was having a girl,” she wrote. “That was probably the best day of my life thus far, the one I will remember as ‘having it all’. . . I was prepared. I was fulfilled.”

The actress and director recounted the grief and pain she went through when she endured the miscarriage shortly after the death of her 13-year-old dog, Melba. “My heart was so full and then it broke,” Kimberly wrote. “I had lost my baby girl. It was too much. I didn’t need to learn this lesson. I wasn’t interested. But I wasn’t in control. These things happen and no, I don’t believe they happen ‘for a reason.'”

For Kimberly, 2016 is going to be a year of “processing [and] healing.” “[L]osing a baby at 22 weeks is tragic,” she wrote. “One thing I am proud of however [sic] was that I allowed myself to be happy and to relish the moment. I sat in all that goodness and I can recall those feelings (when I’m having different ones) and hope that it can be like that again.”

Yes, 2015 was a hard year for Kimberly, but through it all, she’s able to look back at it and recount the good times. “Not to go total Oprah on you, but at the end of this year and the beginning of the next, I am grateful for it all,” she wrote. “Tired. But grateful.”

Thanks, Kimberly, for opening up about such a difficult struggle and tragedy that thousands of women endure every day. According to March of Dimes, “about 10 to 15 out of 100 pregnancies (10 to 15 percent) end in miscarriage,” and it’s been estimated that 50 percent of ALL pregnancies (in which a woman may or may not know she is pregnant) end in miscarriage.

Kimberly’s message is a reminder that women who have miscarried are not alone in their grief —and that it will take time to heal, and it’s OK to feel angry and hurt. But her message also serves as a reminder that women who have miscarried will persevere.